Nobody is working harder than Google to be as evil as Microsoft once was. And nowhere is this more evident than Google's threading of Google+ through everything the way Microsoft once threaded Internet Explorer through everything. Ironically the success of Firefox was due in part to how brilliantly bad IE was. To be fair, a lot of people do seem to like G+, but the manipulative ride Google has taken us on for 3 years is inexcusable.

In a massive corporate manipulation of users Google launched Google+ and Vic Gundotra launched the now legendary "Nymwars" where he literally called for a witch hunt to out and ban pseudonymous users. At first even banning them from products like Gmail and Google Docs that they had been using for the previous 3 years. Meanwhile on the other front, we were all "forced" to adopt Google Authorship if we had any hope of anyone ever clicking on us in search results.

Fast forward 3 years: Vic Gundotra is no longer with the company. The G+ "Real Name" policy is gone. And now Google Authorship is gone. After so much heavy handed manipulation, a giant, but quiet, "never mind."

We live in a new era of Virtual Feudal Lords, and if you aren't going to pledge your allegiance to Google, then you're going to have to pledge it to Apple or somebody else. Still, I hope we don't get fooled again.